FDIC Official Signs, Advertisement of Membership, False Advertising, Misrepresentation of Insured Status, and Misuse of the FDIC's Name or Logo

<RULE> FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION <CFR>12 CFR Part 328</CFR> <RIN>RIN 3064-AG14</RIN> <SUBJECT>FDIC Official Signs, Advertisement of Membership, False Advertising, Misrepresentation of Insured Status, and Misuse of the FDIC's Name or Logo</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is amending its signage requirements for insured depository institutions' (IDIs) digital deposit-taking channels and automated teller machines (ATMs) and like devices. This final rule is intended to address implementation issues and sources of potential confusion raised following the adoption of signage requirements for these banking channels in 2023. The final rule provides additional flexibility to IDIs while also enabling consumers to better understand when they are conducting business with an IDI and when their funds are protected by the FDIC's deposit insurance coverage. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> The amendments made in this rule are effective March 2, 2026. <E T="03">Compliance date:</E> Compliance is required by April 1, 2027. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection: Monika Jansen, Senior Policy Analyst, (202) 898-6781, <E T="03">MoJansen@fdic.gov;</E> Edward Hof, Senior Policy Analyst, (202) 898-7213, <E T="03">EdwHof@fdic.gov;</E> Meron Wondwosen, Assistant Director, (202) 898-3544, <E T="03">MeWondwosen@fdic.gov;</E> Legal Division: Shane Bogusz, Senior Attorney, (571) 366-0212, <E T="03">SBogusz@fdic.gov;</E> Nathan Raygor, Senior Attorney, (202) 898-8688, <E T="03">NRaygor@fdic.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Policy Objectives and History</HD> This final rule amends the signage requirements at 12 CFR 328.4 and 328.5 to provide IDIs with greater flexibility in the display of FDIC signage on digital deposit-taking channels and ATMs and like devices. The final rule seeks to minimize implementation issues, reduce burden, and address potential consumer confusion. The final rule does not amend other provisions under 12 CFR part 328. On December 20, 2023, the FDIC adopted a final rule that, among other things, amended the FDIC's official sign and advertisement of membership regulations under subpart A of 12 CFR part 328 (the 2023 Final Rule). The rule established signage requirements across a wide range of banking channels, including physical premises, digital deposit-taking channels, and ATMs and like devices. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  89 FR 3504 (Jan. 18, 2024). </FTNT> Following the adoption of the 2023 Final Rule, some IDIs requested additional time to meet the new requirements. As a result, the FDIC delayed the compliance deadline for the subpart A amendments. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> Thereafter, the FDIC observed that the provisions governing signage requirements for digital deposit-taking channels and ATMs and like devices, 12 CFR 328.4 and 328.5, continued to generate questions regarding implementation and had the potential to cause consumer confusion. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Accordingly, the FDIC further delayed compliance for those provisions. This extension was intended to allow the FDIC to propose changes to these requirements. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> On November 25, 2025, the FDIC further extended the compliance date for 12 CFR 328.4 and 328.5 from March 1, 2026, to January 1, 2027, noting the uncertainty IDIs faced while the FDIC considered changes to those provisions. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  89 FR 84261 (Oct. 22, 2024). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  90 FR 11659 (Mar. 11, 2025). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See id.</E> </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 90 FR 54544 (Nov. 28, 2025). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Statutory Authority and FDIC Regulations</HD> The FDIC maintains stability and public confidence in the nation's financial system by, among other things, insuring the deposits of all IDIs. Section 18(a) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (FDI Act)  <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> governs IDI sign and advertising statement requirements and grants the FDIC authority to prescribe regulations with respect to these requirements. The regulations implementing signage and advertisement requirements are contained in 12 CFR 328.0 through 328.8 of subpart A (subpart A). Subpart A applies to IDIs, including insured branches of foreign banks. <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  12 U.S.C. 1828(a). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. August 2025 Proposal and Comments</HD> In response to potential consumer confusion and challenges with implementing the 2023 Final Rule's signage requirements for digital deposit-taking channels, ATMs, and like devices, the FDIC published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR or proposal) in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on August 21, 2025. The NPR proposed to amend the signage requirements at 12 CFR 328.4 and 328.5 and requested public comment. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 90 FR 40767 (Aug. 21, 2025). </FTNT> The NPR intended to clarify and provide greater flexibility with respect to the requirements regarding the (1) FDIC official digital sign design; (2) display of signage on digital deposit-taking channels; and (3) display of signage on ATMs and like devices. The NPR solicited comments on all aspects of the proposed rule. The comment period ended on October 20, 2025. The FDIC received a total of nine substantive comments from industry groups, a payments provider, a non-profit organization, and an individual. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> Comments are discussed below. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  Comments may be accessed at: <E T="03">https://www.fdic.gov/federal-register-publications/comments-rin-3064-ag14.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Final Rule and Discussion of Comments</HD> The FDIC reviewed and carefully considered public comments received and is generally finalizing the rule as proposed, with some changes and clarifications, as described below. The amendments made by this final rule will take effect 30 days following publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . For reasons discussed below, the compliance date for the amendments made by this final rule will be April 1, 2027. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. FDIC Official Digital Sign Design Requirements</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">Proposed Rule</HD> The requirements governing the design of the FDIC official digital sign appear at 12 CFR 328.5(b). Those requirements include specific text, color, font, and size requirements, such as specific hexadecimal color codes and wordmark sizes and provide limited flexibility for cases in which the required colors would be illegible due to the color of the background on a digital deposit-taking channel. The NPR proposed amendments to 12 CFR 328.5(b) that would have provided additional flexibility with respect to the color, font, and text size that IDIs may use when displaying the FDIC official digital sign. Although the NPR would have continued to require that the FDIC official digital sign be displayed in either a combination of navy blue and black text or all-white text, the NPR would not have prescribed specific hexadecimal color codes or required a specific font size for the text of the FDIC official digital sign. The proposed amendments would have provided additional flexibility by not requiring specific font sizes and allowing the font used for the FDIC official digital sign to be Source Sans Pro Web or a similar font. Consistent with the FDIC's previous guidance in “Questions and Answers Related to the FDIC's Part 328 Final Rule”  <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> (Q&As), the proposed rule would have expressly permitted IDIs to “wrap” the text of the FDIC official digital sign to address space constraints. <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  “Questions and Answers Related to the FDIC's Part 328 Final Rule” (July 15, 2024), available at: <E T="03">https://www.fdic.gov/deposit-insurance/questions-and-answers-related-fdics-part-328-final-rule.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD3">Discussion of Comments</HD> Comments regarding the FDIC official digital sign design requirements were mixed, with commenters supporting or opposing certain proposed amendments, and others recommending additional changes. Several commenters expressed agreement with the digital sign design amendments proposed in the NPR. Others disagreed with the NPR's approach, with one commenter arguing that consumers derive confidence from the consistency of the FDIC's signage, which would be undermined by providing flexibility in its display. Another commenter suggested that defining a range of acceptable hexadecimal color codes and minimum font sizes would provide clarity and certainty to IDIs regarding whether they have satisfied the rule's requirements. Commenters suggested alternative changes, including providing illustrative examples of permitted digital sign designs, providing a standardized—but optional—official digital sign, and allowing IDIs the flexibility to amend the text of the official digital sign. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Final Rule</HD> The final rule adopts the NPR's amendments as proposed with respect to the design of the FDIC official digital sign. The final rule requires that the text of the official digital sign be navy blue or black but does not mandate specific color codes. Like the proposed rule, the final rule also requires IDIs to use Source Sans Pro Web or any other similar font. These changes are intended to give IDIs sufficient flexibility to exercise reasonable judgment in order to accommodate technical limitatio ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 94k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━